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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24570598">A Birthday Letter, or okay is not okay is not okay</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/torestoreamends/pseuds/torestoreamends'>torestoreamends</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne &amp; Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Draco's Birthday, Gen, Grief, Hogwarts Third Year, Malfoy Family Feels, Pre-Harry Potter and the Cursed Child</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:54:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,751</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24570598</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/torestoreamends/pseuds/torestoreamends</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Scorpius has been trying to write his dad's birthday letter for days. There's so much he wants to say, but how do you wish someone a happy birthday when there's nothing happy about it?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Birthday Letter, or okay is not okay is not okay</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was written in response to James Howard's <a href="https://twitter.com/JHowardActor/status/1268948234459807744">birthday letter to Astoria</a>. I wrote it while watching <i>A Monster Calls</i>, which probably explains why this turned out the way it did...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s a letter that needs writing. Scorpius has been trying to write it for days, but so far, nothing. Head full of words. Hours trying to put them in order. Only a blank page to show for it.</p>
<p>“Are you done yet?” Albus asks on Wednesday night, ten minutes before the library’s meant to close.</p>
<p>Scorpius sighs and scrolls up the empty parchment. “I haven’t started.”</p>
<p>Albus straightens his stack of Potions books. “What are you trying to do anyway?”</p>
<p>“Nothing much. Just a thing.” He shoves the parchment into his bag and blinks at the rest of the books in there. <em>A History of Magic</em>. <em>Standard Book of Spells Grade 3</em>. Two essays he’s supposed to have written but hasn’t.</p>
<p>Albus blows carefully on his Potions essay — another one Scorpius hasn’t thought about yet — then wafts it about in the air. “Have you done that Transfiguration thing for McGonagall yet? I still don’t get it.”</p>
<p>Scorpius shakes his head. “Not yet. But I can explain it. You just have to do the thing with the-” He does a sort of flick with his hand. It’s sort of meant to be a wand movement, but it doesn’t look much like one.</p>
<p>Albus gives a slow, exaggerated nod. “Yup. Now I get it. The thing with the. Incredible explanation.”</p>
<p>Scorpius groans and picks his bag up. “You know what I mean. You heard her. The thingy thing! The-” He flaps his hand.</p>
<p>Albus shakes his head and smiles. “I think someone needs to go to bed. Either that or eat some Pepper Imps.”</p>
<p>Scorpius nods. “Pepper Imps. Those. Yes. Please.”</p>
<p>Albus rolls his Potions essay up and stuffs it into his bags. He scoops the books up, hugs them to his chest, reaches a hand out to Scorpius. “Pepper Imps then. Come on.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They sit on Scorpius’s bed. Pepper Imps scattered from the bag and nestled between the folds of the sheets. Wisps of steam lingering in the air, the white sheen hanging between them, making Albus seem obscured. Distant.</p>
<p>“So what <em>were</em> you doing while we were in the library?”</p>
<p>Scorpius unwraps another sweet. Its rustle softened and muffled by the heavy hangings pulled around them. “Just a letter. I don’t know what to say.”</p>
<p>“A letter to your dad?”</p>
<p>“It’s his birthday on Friday...” He pops the sweet into his mouth and sucks on it, the peppery heat spreading across his tongue.</p>
<p>“Just say happy birthday. That’s what I do. I don’t think my dad expects any more these days. The lower the expectations the easier your life.” Albus shrugs.</p>
<p>“But I don’t want to...” Scorpius screws his face up as a burst of steam rushes from his ears. When it’s gone, he flops down onto his back and stares up at the emerald canopy.</p>
<p>“You don’t want to what?” Albus lies beside him, playing catch with another of the sweets. The little black shape arcs up and down, an insignificant silhouette against the silver glow of their lit wands.</p>
<p>“Don’t know.”</p>
<p>Albus tosses the sweet up again. This time he doesn’t catch it. It bounces across his chest and down against Scorpius’s arm. Scorpius grabs it.</p>
<p>“Mine now.”</p>
<p>“There are plenty more where that came from.” Albus picks up another one and starts untwisting the wax paper. Halfway through, he stops; drops the sweet onto his stomach. He turns his head to look at Scorpius.</p>
<p>When Scorpius was little, he would sit and mess with his mum’s engagement ring. A delicate band with an emerald set into it. Clasped in a filigree net of silver. In the library firelight it would gleam like there was a star trapped inside. Brilliant. Vibrant. Alive. Albus’s eyes are like that now. Stars encased in emerald.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” Albus murmurs. “You’ve been writing — not writing — that letter for a week. You haven’t even done your History of Magic essay yet.”</p>
<p>“Oh, History of Magic’s easy. That’ll take me about five minutes. It’s just more troll riots.”</p>
<p>“I’m not worried about your essay, Scorpius. I’m worried about you.”</p>
<p>Scorpius stops and stares at him. The hangings sap all of the sound out of the world, leaving just the rushing of blood in his ears.</p>
<p>He opens his next sweet as loudly and with as much concentration as he can. Unfolding it without tearing. Smoothing the paper out. Crunching the sweet up even though it burns his tongue and throat. He coughs, eyes watering.</p>
<p>“Nothing... nothing to worry about. Except now.” He fans his mouth, voice hoarse, everything stinging. “I’m on fire. Albus, help. Water.”</p>
<p>“Why did you chew it? Idiot.”</p>
<p>“Just did. Hooooo it’s hot hot hot hot argh.”</p>
<p>“Merlin.”</p>
<p>Albus rummages beyond the hangings and returns with a glass of water. Scorpius guzzles it down and sits panting, tongue sticking out, steam gushing from his nose and ears. When it’s finally over, he wipes his tears away on his sleeve and sniffs.</p>
<p>“Never again.”</p>
<p>“You say that now, but I bet you do the exact same thing in about ten minutes’ time.”</p>
<p>Scorpius shakes his head. “Never. Ever. Again.”</p>
<p>“Do you want some more water?”</p>
<p>“I will love you forever.”</p>
<p>Albus passes him another glass and he chugs it. Nothing has ever been more soothing. He closes his eyes and throws his head back in joy.</p>
<p>“Bliss. Sweet bliss.”</p>
<p>“Ridiculous.”</p>
<p>“It was worth it for how good the water tastes.”</p>
<p>“Forgive me if I don’t try it.” Albus takes the cups and puts them back on the bedside table. “Anyway. You didn’t answer my question.”</p>
<p>“What question?” Scorpius knows exactly which question. <em>Are you okay?</em> A question he’s hated being asked for more than a year — for most of his life in fact. A question that’s impossible to answer. Because okay and okay and okay do not all mean the same thing. He’s okay but he’s not okay. Maybe he’ll never be okay. Maybe he doesn’t even know what okay is. Except that it’s a word that starts to sound really weird when you think about it too much.</p>
<p>“All I’m saying is that I’ve never seen you not do a History of Magic essay immediately after it was set.” Albus gives him a look, then he starts clearing the loose Pepper Imps back into their bag.</p>
<p>“It’s just this letter. I want it done. But it’s hard to start. The things I want to say... I know how to say them, but I can’t say them. It’s weird. They don’t want to come out of my brain.”</p>
<p>“What are the things you want to say?”</p>
<p>“I want to say...” Scorpius trails off. Swallows. “I want to- I want- I want to say that...” He shakes his head. “No. See? Brain-” He makes an explosion noise and rains his hands through the air like falling firework sparks.</p>
<p>“I’d offer to help, but I think you might be beyond that.” Albus shoots him a little smile.</p>
<p>“Me too. So far beyond.”</p>
<p>“So, will you be okay if I go to bed and leave you to your... I don’t want to say thoughts, because I don’t know if whatever goes on in your head is that coherent. Your ramblings? Your brain fudge? Your mental candyfloss?”</p>
<p>“Hot chocolate of the mind. Rich and sweet and silky smooth. Mmm. Now I want hot chocolate.”</p>
<p>Albus rolls his eyes. “I’m taking that as a yes. Goodnight, Scorpius.” He lifts the hangings up and swings his legs out.</p>
<p>Scorpius waves. “Sweet dreams, Albus.”</p>
<p>“Try not to do yourself too much damage with your weirdness. Physically or mentally.”</p>
<p>“Oh I’ll fail! But thanks.”</p>
<p>Albus disappears out through the hangings, taking the Pepper Imps and his laughter with him. As the fabric falls back into place, Scorpius finds himself very much alone. Cut off from everyone else. Stuck with his own twisted bundle of emotions in his own little bubble of nighttime. It’s painfully quiet and lonely, a whole eight hours stretching ahead of him, and he knows it’s not going to be filled with sleep.</p>
<p>He hauls his school bag up into bed with him and pulls out his scroll of blank parchment and his quill. The silver glare of the wand light doesn’t help him know how to fill the page. He’d been half hoping that sleep deprivation and sugar in potent combination would fuel him, but still nothing.</p>
<p><em>Just write what you want to say</em>, he tells himself. As if it were that easy.</p>
<p>What he wants to say is everything. His battered mess of a heart bleeding out onto the page. But everything is too much.</p>
<p>Everything is too much, and anything less isn’t enough. How do you square that one out? It’s like one of those equations Albus loves solving for their Potions homework. The ones Scorpius can only just wrap his head around.</p>
<p>
  <em>Try it.</em>
</p>
<p>He stares down at the page, fingers clenched around his quill. Heart hammering in his chest, because apparently the truth is just that terrifying. Breath short. Eyes already prickling.</p>
<p>He dips his quill in the ink.</p>
<p>Plop. Plop. The ink drips off the tip. He wipes it on the glass rim of the bottle with a soft chink. The wand light dazzles him and his eyes ache. He screws them up. Opens them. Blinks twice. Takes a breath. Puts pen to paper.</p>
<p>
  <em>Dear Dad,</em>
</p>
<p>His quill whispers across the parchment. Spilling secrets he hasn’t let out before. A whole flock of caged birds he’s kept locked up inside, fluttering and unsettled, longing to be set free.</p>
<p>
  <em>I miss Mum every day. I know it looks like things are okay but I don’t think they are. I don’t think they’ll ever be okay again. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I’m scared that I don’t know who we are any more.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I know this is meant to be a birthday letter, it’s meant to be happy and grateful and nodding to the future, but I can’t. I’m not happy. I’m not grateful. I’m not ready for the future. I want the past back. Her back.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I loved her so much. And I love you too. I do. But it’s not the same. You’re not the same. I’m not the same.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>There’s a hole where she should be. This great big hole. I don’t know how to fill it. I don’t know if I’m meant to fill it. It’s just there, and it keeps getting bigger. It’s pulling bits of me into it. I think I’m getting lost. I feel lost.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I want to come home. I thought it would be easier at school. I thought it would be a distraction. And it has been. But I miss you. Do you miss me? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I can’t do this anymore. I want to go back to when she was alive. And I don’t want you to get older. Because that means I’m going to lose you too, and what then?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Please let me come home. I don’t want the exams or the essays any more. I just want a hug. I want to give you a hug. I want</em>
</p>
<p>It’s impossible to see the page through the haze of tears. There’s no time for the words to dry. Big splodges of salt wet hit the parchment, saturating it. The ink swims and runs. Spreading. Blurring. Obscuring Scorpius’s innermost thoughts.</p>
<p>His breath comes in sniffles and snatches as he scrunches his fingers around the parchment. Crumpling it. Squishing it into a tiny ball. Crushing it as small as he can. He passes it between his hands, pressing on it so hard that his fingers and wrists hurt. And once it’s done, once it’s a torn, creased wreck, he picks up his wand and chokes out a word.</p>
<p>“Incendio.”</p>
<p>As the parchment crumbles into a small pile of ash on his bed, he brushes his tears away and swallows hard. Steeling himself to start writing again. The proper letter this time. The sensible, contained one. The safe one. The one Albus would tell him to write.</p>
<p>
  <em>Dear Dad,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Happy birthday.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I know it’s a weird thing to write this year, but I do hope you are happy. Everyone deserves to be happy on their birthday!</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I ordered you a present from Hogsmeade, which I’ve never done before. Not on my own anyway. I keep worrying that the owl will get lost or something, but I hope it arrives safe.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Are you having cake? I’m sorry I’m not there to share it with you. Please have another one when I get home. Mainly because I like eating cake. Maybe we should have a rule that all birthdays are summer holiday or Christmas birthdays now. Just because of the cake.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>We’ve got exams coming up soon, so it’s very busy. Lots of essays to write, as well as tons of revision. I’ve been working hard, but you never know if you’re working hard enough until you get the exam paper. That’s the stressful part.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Anyway, I should probably go because I have three different essays to write! But I hope you know that I miss you and I’m looking forward to the holidays.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Enjoy being old.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Scorpius</em>
</p>
<p>He signs his name with a flourish and stares blankly down at the parchment. A whole week of working and worrying for that. Babbling about cake and school work. He’d expected better of himself.</p>
<p>That’s what he couldn’t tell Albus. His dad’s expectations of him must already be so low, he doesn’t want them to be any lower.</p>
<p>But at least this letter won’t make things worse. Won’t make his dad worry. Won’t force either of them to confront the reality that okay is a concept so distant from them right now that it might as well be on the other side of the moon.</p>
<p>As Scorpius wriggles around, uncurling his legs, the shameful little pile of ash shifts, spilling across his bed. The letter is better off burned up like that.</p>
<p>If there’s one thing he’s learned this year it’s that feelings make things complicated. Albus gets all quiet and uncomfortable when there are feelings involved. His teachers and classmates look at him with pity. His dad goes very pale. But if the feelings disappear, everything’s fine. Everything’s easy. And easy is good for everyone. Isn’t it?</p>
<p>He sniffs and wipes his nose on his sleeve. As he scoops the ashes into his hand, his stomach feels like it’s been twisted into knots. He’s all lumpy inside, except for somewhere in his middle, which is completely hollow. If you knocked on his ribs you’d hear the empty echo. But that doesn’t matter. It’s his dad’s birthday, and like he said in the letter, everyone deserves to be happy on their birthday.</p>
<p>He slips out of bed and tips the ashes into his bin, then he ducks back under the hangings and blows on the ink of the new letter. He’ll send it tomorrow, with all his best birthday wishes. And then he can get on with his essays. Finally.</p>
<p>Essays. Exams. Summer. No time to think or feel. Lock the emotions back where they came from and keep them there. Where no one can see them. Where the only damage they’re doing is to his heart. Which is a mangled wreck anyway.</p>
<p>He slips the letter into an envelope and leaves it on his bedside table for the morning. It’s done now. No more worrying. He can move on. Move on from birthdays and happiness to focus on doing okay. Being okay. Or at least pretending.</p>
<p>His blankets weigh him down as he wriggles into bed. A crinkled up Pepper Imp wrapper rustles beneath his leg and he fishes it out. Throws it on the floor.</p>
<p>Once his bed is clear, he extinguishes his wand. Shadows close in around him, around his heart. He closes his eyes.</p>
<p>Sleep comes in a long, frustrating ebb and flow, full of tossing and turning and too much thinking. Still writing and rewriting the letter inside his head. Still caught between wanting his dad to be happy and wanting to be a braver, better son. Another of Albus’s unsolvable equations.</p>
<p>Okay does not equal okay does not equal okay. Honesty does not equal happiness. A heart is greater than the sum of its parts. But when it’s broken into pieces, all that’s left are parts. Parts and hollow emptiness.</p>
<p>Scorpius rolls over and punches his pillow. He lies on his side, uncomfortable, unhappy, unable to sleep. Head full of words unsaid. It’s almost worse now the letter is written.</p>
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